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Drei Dithyramben, Op 10

Introduction

It is unclear what Medtner understood by the word ‘Dithyramb’, often said to be a hymn to the Greek gods of wine and fertility, although even classical scholars cannot agree on its precise meaning or evolution. Schiller’s poem with the same title (set by Schubert) is a general paean to the gods, so it is possible that Medtner (well versed in German literature from childhood) took his inspiration from there. From his Three Dithyrambs Op 10, and from the last movement of his Violin Sonata No 1, Op 21 (similarly entitled and marked Festivamente), we can deduce that he thought of it as some kind of solemn ceremony or celebration, almost a ritual, never more so than in the four portentous gong strokes which begin the first piece of Op 10 (Maestoso severamente) and are never far away, either in the foreground or buried in the texture. The second and greatest Dithyramb carries a footnote: ‘In the manner of a sermon, that is of a theme freely interpreted and varied.’ The theme itself is grandiloquent and surprisingly diatonic but the undulating quintuplets and chromatic adventures of the development bring a note of anxiety which is swept away by the return of the main theme decked in resplendent virtuoso garb (grandisonante) and capped by a blistering Prestissimo coda. The third Dithyramb (Andantino innocente), in effect a kind of postlude, is comparatively mild, even pastoral in tone, but still proceeds with a stately tread.

Recordings

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‘Dithyramb’ has been defined variously as an Hellenic choral hymn in worship of Dionysus, god of fertility and wine, a Roman song to Bacchus, a type of impassioned speech, an extended poem. In writing his three Dithyrambs Op 10 Medtner probably had all these understandings in mind. Like the Bohemian Tomášek nearly a century earlier, he was drawn to the word as a descriptive/emotional title: the third cycle of Forgotten Melodies closes with a Danza ditirambica, and the last movement of the First Violin Sonata Op 21 (1909–10) is called ‘Ditirambo’.

In the imperially resplendent key of the ‘Eroica’, ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ (Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition) and Ein Heldenleben, the second Dithyramb from Op 10 (1904–05) is an extraordinary example of pianistic glory and glitter. Tellingly marked (in German) Mit höchstem Pathos, and dominated by an idea that is fundamentally no more than a rising scale of E flat major rhythmically characterized, it falls into three basic sections, the middle one cast in the form of a long ‘chapter’ of rumination in 10/8 time that works its way from G minor back to E flat via remote tonal trajectories and a climax of all cleansing fire above the instrument’s bottom A. The coda (Presto) is spectacular, the brass choir of its final six bars resonating the first three notes of the principal theme against high chiming bells and deep thundered organ pedal points.